A work in progress.
Television
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- Squid Game, Season 2: I can’t believe that so many people all around the world watched such a violent show in Season 1, which purported to say something important about the gap between the rich and poor, and the nature of human survival, but didn’t, really. It was fascinating to watch, culturally, and the characters, language and rhythm were quite interesting. But season 2 is a strange watch, so violent, and without moving the story along much. I will be resentfully watching Season 3 when it comes out.
- Missing You: I was drawn in by seeing this was, for a time, the #1 show in Australia in Netflix and also because I liked Rosalind Eleazer’s acting in Slow Horses. And the first episode had lots of promise with interesting characters and the promise of a decent thriller. But then none of the characters acted in a way that I felt was authentic. It was basically a thriller with lots of plot points and mysteries, and moving the characters around a chess board, feeling by the end, hollow.
- Black Doves: A spy who falls in love with someone she hasn’t done a background check on; an assassin who falls in love with someone and then continues to put them in danger: it makes for OK television but didn’t make sense to me. But I let myself ignore these plot problems and then found I really enjoyed this.
- Prime Target: I don’t know why we’re watching so much ludicrous TV and cinema these days. It started off entertainingly enough but then seemed to lose control of the story and writing and I lost interest. They somehow made Leo Woodall into the least engaging and attractive of his characters so far, and while I love Sidse Babett Knudsen, from Borgen, even she couldn’t save this for me.
Documentaries and Reality Television
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- Great Pottery Throw Down, Season 8: This looks like it’s going to be a good season!
- Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut: I think this is a really interesting issue, gut health and microbes, but I can’t say that the arguments are done very well here. Cute animations with felt and wool are engaging but I’m not sure they really get the points across. It seemed they wanted to talk about shit, literally, but without much more of a useful message.